Just when you were getting used to finding Politics from the East here - everything's changing...

The BBC is giving its correspondents new homes on the web, with a brand new look to match. So I hope it won't be too much trouble to pick us up here.

Thanks for following this blog. We do our best to keep you up to date with all the political comings and goings in the region and we will endeavour to carry on doing the same. We will simply continue in a new place that is easy to find.

So it's not goodbye, just bon voyage and we hope you will join us on the new site.

The Green Party's Adrian Ramsay

Adrian Ramsay, a lynchpin of Green support in the region is standing down as a councillor in Norwich. It ends eight years on the council he was elected to at the tender age of 21.

He has now risen to the dizzying heights of Deputy Leader of the Green Party.

"I need to concentrate on my national role but I will still be campaigning in Norwich," he says.

The Green Party is once again hoping that this will be the election when they make the big breakthrough.

"I don't think we've reached a glass ceiling. We're growing around the region and particularly in Norwich. I think there are seats we can gain there - seats we contested strongly last time."

They are already in opposition in the city with 14 councillors to Labour's 16 and the party is hopeful of taking votes from disaffected Lib Dems who are unhappy at the coalition.

Mr Ramsay argues: "We've picked up lots of support in the last 13 years from people who felt let down by the Labour Government when they wanted a new type of politics and didn't get it. Similarly a lot of them voted Lib Dem.

"A lot of them voted Lib Dem tactically at the general election and feel let down in all sorts of ways on lots of issues and we have already started to see lots more people joining the Green Party who used to be in the Lib Dems. And in the local elections in Norwich in September we made another gain from the Lib Dems.

"We've got 38 councillors across the East of England, that's more than any other region in the country. It really is the Green Party that's strong in terms of organisation and picking up support from people who feel let down by the other parties."

Now firmly established in Norwich, the Greens are hoping for further success.

With the Lib Dems in Government they are competing to take over as the party of the protest vote.

On the election trail - Nigel Farage

"Election night wasn't great for me", says the leader of the UK Independence Party, who survived an air crash that day.

"I was doing other things. We have these elections and the next set of European elections to get through but yes I will stand again in the general election."

Nigel Farage has been on the campaign trail in North Norfolk and he tells us, yesterday in London, today in Aylesbury and tomorrow, Leicester. No one can doubt his enthusiasm but is that matched by the enthusiasm of the voters?

UKIP do well on the European front here in the East, where they have two MEP's but can they win at a local level?

"It all depends on how it translates at a local level. We are the party of small government. We are the party that believes you should have a say. The UKIP message is simple. Vote for us to give you power back. We think people at a local level should have the right to hold binding referenda on issues that really affect their lives."

UKIP is increasingly seen as a threat in Conservative circles, which may explain why the Prime Minister decided to make his controversial speech on immigration this week.

"I think the timing was all about the local elections," says Mr Farage.

"Most Conservative voters feel let down - like a cheap pair of braces. This is a man that promised a referendum and turned his back on it. This is the man who is now taking off into yet another foreign war with very unclear aims. Tory voters feel badly let down and in the eastern counties we will certainly tear into that Conservative vote".

As I said, no one can doubt the enthusiasm but with only three councillors across the whole of the East, there's a long way to go.

Suffolk Coastl MP Therese Coffey says the cuts in arts funding could have been worse

"It could have been worse," she tells me. "There have been cuts, there's no doubt, but this has demonstrated that the Arts Council have to support the arts strategically, with the emphasis on quality."

The east's arts organisations now know where the axe is falling on their grants.

The regional Arts Council helped some local arts projects but others had their grants reduced and a few lost them completely.

Overall, there's been a fall of 15% in the sum the Arts Council can handout. Across the eastern region 30 arts organisations are sharing just over £40m over the next three years. Nineteen of them are in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. Three have lost their funding entirely.

In Suffolk there was widespread relief that many of the county's organisations will be receiving some grant, even though others lost out. Dance East's grant increased by 27% to £2.5m over three years. The Wolsey Theatre received the same amount, while the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds faces a cut. Halesworth's Poetry Trust, which runs the Aldeburgh poetry festival, lost its grant completely.

"It is a shame that they missed out," says the Suffolk Coastal MP. "The work they do is
very valuable and it would be a great pity to lose their contribution. I hope a way can be found to continue their work."

The Norfolk and Norwich Festival was a winner with a substantial increase in its grant. The grant to Norfolk's Writers Centre went up by 62% and the Norwich Art's Centre is also getting more funding.

And in Essex the Colchester based Mercury Theatre retained £2.4m but lost £400,000. Dance Digital lost £100,000 but the Arts Centre in Colchester got £600,000 and Firstsite Visual Arts Centre was another big winner, getting £2.5m.

"We simply can't support everything. It would be lovely but we do want to make sure quality is targeted," says the Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal.

Many arts organisations are also funded by our local authorities and they are facing a double whammy for the forseeable future.

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Norman Lamb has told friends that he fears the Government is "heading for a car crash" over the NHS.

"The row over tuition fees will be nothing compared to this one if we get it wrong," he's told them.

"The public won't forgive us if we get it wrong."

As chief political advisor to Nick Clegg and a party whip, Norman Lamb is normally the soul of discretion. Indeed it is his job (as we have reported before) to work quietly behind the scenes ironing out any problems between the Conservative and Liberal Democrats before they make it onto the front pages.

Norman Lamb - health reform concerns

So something has clearly gone wrong behind the scenes when Norman Lamb himself is on the front pages threatening to resign unless the Government reforms its plans for the NHS.

It seems as if Mr Lamb has just become very frustrated. Health is something he knows a lot about - he was a highly regarded shadow health spokesman and he knows a lot of the key players very well. We understand that ever since Mr Lansley first produced his reforms, Norman Lamb has had reservations and has been quietly fighting behind the scenes for changes.

Having failed he's decided to speak out.

It's not the principle of giving more powers to GPs that worries him, it's the process. He fears that it is all happening too fast and that many in the health profession are not yet won over.

He is instead advocating a policy similar to that in Education over Academies - why not wait for GPs to come to the Government and ask to opt out rather than make them all do it by 2013?

He doesn't want to be seen as rebel, he will still passionately defend the rise in VAT, council cuts and the rise in tuition fees. But on this issue he felt he had to speak out, even though he accepts it may scupper any future Ministerial ambitions.

There is, of course, a large element of politics in this.

We are weeks away from local elections where the Lib Dems expect to do very badly. Mr Lamb's intervention on this issue is a chance for the party to claim on the doorsteps that it's standing up to those "nasty Tories".

Nick Clegg knew what Mr Lamb was going to say on yesterday's Politics Show, he knew he was going to write today's article in the Independent. We now understand that he's told Mr Lamb to be quiet and lie low.

For every politician there comes a time when you feel you have to put principle before party. This has been a defining 24 hours in Mr Lamb's political career.

If the Government makes substantial changes during its new "listening process", he will be able to claim a lot of the credit. If it doesn't, he could find himself heading for the back benches.

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On 5 May the British public will vote on how we elect our MPs to parliament.

Just so you know, the question to be put to a referendum will be: Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the "alternative vote" system instead of the current "first past the post" system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?

The UK uses the "first past the post" system to elect its MPs - the one with the most votes wins even if it's only a majority of one.

Now we will be asked whether the Alternative Vote system should be adopted instead.

Of course you all know that this system allows voters to rank the candidates in order of preference.

So, under the Alternative Vote system instead of casting a single vote you can rank the candidates in order -1, 2, 3, 4, 5... and so on.

The first preference votes are counted but in order to win, you need to get 50% of the vote.

If that hasn't happened, the candidate with fewest votes gets knocked out and those ballot papers are redistributed according to their second-choice candidates.

That's repeated until someone achieves the 50%.

Simple! Geddit? Of course YOU do...

And I raise a glass to the hapless individuals who kindly agreed to demonstrate the system for us.

Brian Binley MP

Brian Binley, the Conservative MP for Northampton South, is another MP who hopes the local elections are actually fought on local issues.

The overriding issue in Northampton is still town centre development and that's bound up with the future of the town's sports clubs. Plans suggested by both the Saints and the Cobblers for Sixfields and Franklins Gardens are a key election issue, as is the long term development of the town centre to deliver more shops and better access for pedestrians and cyclists.

"It would be fantastic to get that sorted out and moving," said Mr Binley.

"We really need 10,000 new jobs in the town centre. That's something worth fighting for."

Councillor Brian Hoare, the leader of the Lib Dem group says: "I'm surprised at the Conservatives saying they would scrap the Town Centre First policy-because they voted for it in the Council Chamber.

"And it's not been bad for the town - it's a sensible policy that follows national planning guidelines. It's led to the regeneration of the town centre. And whilst it says Town Centre First, it does not stop or prohibit retail development anywhere in our town."

Labour is also fighting on the issue of Northampton's regeneration.

Councillor Lee Mason says: "Of course the town centre's important to the whole of Northampton and we're just as frustrated as anyone else as how long it's taken for progress to be made with the Grosvenor Centre. We want to see it happening soon but it's not either/or - we can have progress in the centre and we also support development for our sporting venues - both the Saints and the Cobblers."

Meanwhile Mr Binley is bemused at Labour's showing on the party lists. "There are only 31 candidates for 45 seats. And that's in a town where there used to be two Labour MPs."

He's right. All the Borough Council seats are contested this year, they don't elect in thirds as many other councils do.

In January Parliament approved a change in the town's Borough Ward boundaries, so the map has completely changed, and many people will have to vote at different polling stations. The town has moved from 47 Councillors in 23 Wards to 45 Councillors in 33 wards, but in 14 of them you can't vote for a Labour candidate.

Labour's leader maintains: "We're the listening party and we want to do more for the people and consult with them more as to what they want to happen."

She thinks there are numbers of disillusioned Lib Dem voters: "I've certainly had on the doorstep remarks about 'Well, we made a mistake voting the way we did last time - yes, I'll certainly be voting Labour this time'. I've had quite a few people saying that to me."

But Councillor Hoare for the Lib Dems thinks this is a particularly important polling day for the Lib Dems.

He said: "There's very good reason for coming out at this election because you can change the voting system for the future to an alternative vote system that makes your vote count even more in the future. So I'd encourage people to vote AV in a positive way.

"I'd also encourage them to vote in the local elections because Northampton is at a crossroads. I hope it does mean that that they can make the decision which returns a Liberal Democrat administration which will continue the improvements we've demonstrated we can deliver for Northampton."

"In Northampton I am hopeful rather than confident," Mr Binley says guardedly.

That may say more about the high water mark the Conservatives hit last time these seats were fought in 2007 than the state of the coalition partners today. Who knows, maybe even local issues may play a part...

There is talk at the moment of the BBC perhaps reducing local radio output to just breakfast and drivetime with a sustaining service - perhaps Radio 5 Live - during the rest of the day.

The BBC insists that no decision has been made and that it's looking at a wide range of options in order to save money.

This afternoon Mr Vaizey visited BBC Radio Norfolk and met staff who produce and present the daytime output.

"We had a debate on this issue in Parliament yesterday," he later told us, "and a lot of MPs expressed their strong views about the quality of BBC local radio.

"I think the BBC will want to think very carefully about this because the case that's been to made to me, which is very convincing is that, yes, figures dip during the day because people go out to work but you've got to see the whole thing as a whole, you can't go local, go national, go local. It's got to be coherent."

It was Therese Coffey, the Conservatives' Suffolk Coastal MP, who secured that debate about the future of BBC local radio.

She praised the service saying:"They support community moments, where local radio truly excels, such as the Proms at the Albert Hall being taken to the local celebration party, or the royal wedding coming up on 29 April."

She is keen to stop the recently floated idea to centralise local radio. "Leiston FC probably would not get commentary on Radio 5 Live, even though they are about to win their championship and get promoted into the Ryman League premier division, but somehow I think that matters to the people of Suffolk."

So far Ms Coffey has the support of 66 MPs from across the political spectrum for her Early Day Motion to save BBC local radio.

It is no surprise that Labour has a full slate of candidates in councils like Norwich, Waveney, Great Yarmouth and Southend.

It is particularly pleased that it can field the number of candidates it is managing to recruit in rural Suffolk. In Babergh, Labour is fielding the highest number of candidates ever. The party says the figure of 31 is treble the number who stood in the last set of local elections.

May's elections will provide an indicator of public reaction to the recent spending cuts

It's a fascinating set of elections this May. It is the first time we have had a coalition government for 60 years and we have the largest budget deficit since the Second World War. It's a heady mix.

As central government cracks down hard on our councils, how will it play out at the ballot box? Whose fault will it be perceived to be? The Conservatives blame Labour for "getting us into this mess". Labour blames the Lib Dems for 'supporting the cuts' and the Lib Dems believe they're taking the responsibility of government seriously.

Support for the Lib Dems has waned since their pre-general election high point last year.

Baroness Ros Scott

Latest polls are showing them at a 16% share of the vote, after a little bounce recently, but it's still way down from the 22% share they actually won last year.

I asked the Lib Dem peer Baroness Ros Scott whether they are going to be the whipping boys of this set of council elections. She hopes that candidates will be judged on their local record.

"I hope it's fought on how good a candidate is and how good the job is at a local level. I also hope we can get the message across that we took responsibility when we could have walked away from government.

"We are making a difference in government on all sorts of issues like the raising of the income tax threshold, EMA concessions and we'll hear next week about pensions," the former President of the party told me.

She also believes that the Conservative and Lib Dem parties are distinct enough at a local level, even though they are in coalition:

"We are in coalition but part of that is that our starting position is different. We have no ideological drive towards smaller government like the Conservatives but we do believe very strongly that we have got to tackle the deficit."

The Suffolk peer is surprisingly confident that Lib Dem support will hold up and they won't be punished for their U-turn on tuition fees or the splits in their ranks over the cuts at a local level.

"It is possible some people might sit on their hands but it's also possible that others who didn't think we were a serious offer before will take us seriously as a party now. And that could be especially true of Conservative voters."

"This is one of those elections where anything could happen," - a sentiment with which I can only concur.

In many of our town halls they're calling 5 May 'Super Thursday'.

Not only will every council be holding elections for district or borough councillors, there will also be the AV referendum and many places will also have parish elections. As if that's not enough, in Bedford there's also a new mayor to elect.

No surprise then that many returning officers expect to be counting into the weekend.

With all our councils having just cut jobs and services, these elections are being seen as a chance for people to either express their anger or to give their backing to the coalition's policy of bringing down the deficit fast by making large scale cuts.

Labour is talking about these elections marking the start of a revival in the East. The Greens and UKIP are excitedly talking about becoming the parties for disaffected Liberal Democrat and Conservative voters. The Lib Dems are telling us that they could gain votes from the Conservatives. The Conservatives admit they were at a high threshold last time, which will be difficult to sustain.

In the East most of our councils are run by the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats control Bedford, Cambridge, Northampton and North Norfolk. Labour have Corby, Luton and Stevenage, while Babergh, Colchester, Ipswich, Milton Keynes, Norwich and Tendring are in No Overall Control.

A handful of councils may change hands. But what could be more interesting in these elections is the number of seats which each party wins or loses.

At the moment - across all 45 councils in the East - the Conservatives have 1,224 councillors, the Liberal Democrats 396, Labour 250, the Greens 21 and UKIP 3. There are also 131 Independent councillors.

How different these figures are after 'Super Thursday' will be a useful barometer about political opinion in the East.

It will also give us some idea of what the public really thinks about the cuts and savings which our councils have had to make.. and will have to continue to make.

The region's councils are being given £27.5m to repair potholes.

The news will be welcomed by every local authority in the East which has been struggling to keep up with and fund repairs following the harsh winter.

The largest grant, £6.9m, goes to Norfolk. Essex gets £5.3m, Suffolk gets £4.4m and Hertfordhire £3.8m. Cambridgeshire gets £2.6m, Buckinghamshire receives £2.5m and the smaller unitary authorities receive grants ranging from £248,000 to £787,000.

"This is an absolutely tremendous result for Norfolk," said Graham Plant, the council's cabinet member for Travel and Transport.

"This will be welcomed by hard-pressed motorists in the wake of the worst winter for 100 years. The money will be spent on a mixture of pothole repairs, patching and resurfacing work."

"Of course we're pleased," said a spokesperson for Essex County Council, adding that the problem was so great in Essex that the council's teams was repairing 250 potholes a day.

The MP for Bury St Edmunds David Ruffley described the grant for Suffolk as "fantastic", adding there was a particular need to repair potholes along the A14.

"It is a vital highway between the Midlands and the continent," he said. "I am hoping these additional funds will be used wisely."

There is one drawback. The councils have been told they have to spend the money by September.

"We'll be pulling out all the stops to make sure it's spent on time," a Norfolk County Council spokesman said.

"But it's going to mean that there'll be a lot more roadworks than normal over the summer. All we can say to people is 'please be understanding and bear with us'."

Let's hope we remember that when we're stuck in contraflow with a carload of kids in a heatwave...

George Osborne and the Treasury team on Budget day

Good news for motorists, no not the fuel duty cut but the £100m pot to repair potholes.

We've all got our favourite one that we forget to swerve past and crunch into regularly. Most of our roads seem to resemble Swiss cheese after last winter.

The Local Government Association's Peter Box commented: "Councils filled in more than two million potholes last year and, following the coldest December on record, face a difficult task to keep roads in a safe condition this year."

Imagine that, two million potholes and not one of them on my road.

Of course the headline was the 1p cut in fuel duty and the cancelling of next month's 4p rise, although the 3p rise through the VAT increase stays... are you following all of this?

According to Labour that makes you 2p a litre worse off than you were at Christmas.

According to Matt Hancock, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, you're 5p per litre better off than you would have been under Labour.

Fuel - will motorists be better off?

"In the run up to the Budget, the overwhelming demand I heard across West Suffolk was for help for families and businesses with the cost of fuel. The Chancellor has delivered more than I could have hoped for," he said.

South Norfolk's Conservative MP, Richard Bacon, welcomed the £24m investment boost for Norwich Research Park.

He said: "I am delighted that the work of the scientists at the Norwich Research Park has been recognised by the Government. The Park includes the John Innes Centre, one of the world's leading centres of excellence in biological sciences which by itself contributes over £170m a year to the UK economy."

The lion's share of the funds, raised by the Government's bank levy, will go to the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, which will receive a cool £44m.

"This is a good budget for Cambridge," said the city's Lib Dem MP, Julian Huppert.

No news on Enterprise Zones for the East yet, most of that money looks like it's heading north so far but Norwich North MP, Chloe Smith (Con), is hopeful for a place in the 10 that have yet to be decided:

"I am pleased we got Norwich's name in the frame for an enterprise zone and now is the chance to work on the detail. I'm confident we can make a winning case."

But changes to planning might be the most profound for the East - the fastest growing region in the country. It will now be easier to convert commercial properties into homes and there's to be a presumption that the default answer for new developments will be a yes.

Norwich South MP, Lib Dem, Simon Wright, said the plans will give the construction industry a real boost:

"We've seen a real slump in first time house buyers in the last few years, and I'm pleased to see the Chancellor respond with hard proposals to address the struggle faced particularly by young people hoping to get on the housing ladder."

Residents will still need to have a say on plans that will change their towns and villages and councils will want to ensure there's a mixed economy of homes and offices. So we'll have to see how localism will play out under the new rules.

Mirage taking part in air strikes on Libya

It's often said that parliament is at its best during times of national crisis, and during the debate over military action in Libya there were some powerful speeches from the East's MPs.

"We have crossed a threshold," said Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative MP for Harwich and North Essex and former member of the Defence Select Committee.

"Honourable members should have no illusions that there is no such thing as limited war, in all its bloody terror and dirt."

Mark Lancaster (Con, Milton Keynes North), a member of the Territorial Army who has served in several war zones, declared:

"I have yet to meet a soldier who has been to war who would rush to another one. It is difficult to experience the horrors of war first hand and ever be the same again.

"I am a firm believer that jaw-jaw is better than war-war, but I accept that the time for jaw-jaw sometimes comes to an end and we must act."

But he later said something that many of our MPs agree with:

"One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was never to go into a room without knowing where the exit is. I fear that we have no clear exit at the moment in Libya. That is understandable; anyone who stood up in this House with a clear idea of exactly how we will exit the situation would be at best naive."

The lack of a clear mission and exit strategy is one that has made several MPs nervous. It is one reason why John Baron, MP for Basildon and Billericay, voted against the Government - the only Conservative to do so.

"What is the end game?" he later said. "No one really knows, what happens if Gaddafi is still in power at the end of all this? "

"I think our record of intervention has not been good and here we are yet again interfering in a Muslim country. If the Arabs want a no-fly zone, why don't they do it?"

Douglas Carswell, the MP for Clacton decided to abstain in the vote because, he said: "I do not know all the answers at the moment.

"I'm not against military intervention," he said.

"I just want to know what impact it will have on the ground in Libya and are there ways in which we could achieve the same outcome by involving Arab players?

Demonstrators in Libya

"There have been popular uprisings in the two countries next door to Libya. Surely there must be people in Tunisia and Egypt who'd be prepared to overthrow a tyrant in a neighbouring Arab country?"

Back in the Commons there were more powerful speeches.

The Lib Dem MP, Bob Russell, who's always an advocate for the military garrison in his constituency of Colchester, reminded the Foreign Secretary that: "In opposition we constantly raised concerns about the fact that our armed forces were under strength and overstretched. We are now having cuts in the defence budget... we must be careful about what happens in Afghanistan if we get too heavily involved in Libya."

While Harlow's Robert Halfon, whose parents fled Libya, welcomed the no fly zone but the Conservative MP added that it had to go further:

"We must supply weapons to the resistance fighters. We cannot just leave them to Gaddafi's troops, albeit under a no-fly zone. We must also ensure that all kinds of humanitarian aid reaches the citizens of Tripoli and Benghazi and the surrounding areas."

Most MPs believe they are doing the right thing in supporting the UN resolution. But no one is clear about what happens once the no-fly zone is in place and Gaddafi has stopped attacking his people. And that is making some of our MPs nervous.

Elizabeth Truss MP

Teachers are in short supply in South West Norfolk, according to Elizabeth Truss, its Conservative MP.

She raised the matter in the Commons and called on the Government to extend the successful Teach First programme to Norfolk.

Teach First was started in 2002 and sends top graduates to teach in poor performing schools for at least two years. Although it's available in six other regions, the East is not currently one of them. Elizabeth Truss thinks it should be.

She also suggested the possibility that national pay guidelines should be relaxed for subjects that have difficulty in recruiting teachers.

Such a move would make it easier for head teachers to attract qualified candidates, argued the SW Norfolk MP.

Nick Gibb MP (Minister for Schools) had some interesting news. He told her: "On pay, my honourable friend will be interested to know that a further remit will be issued to the School Teachers' Review Body later this year asking for recommendations on how the pay and conditions system can be made less rigid.

"This work will build on the current extensive flexibility, which will allow schools to pay to attract and retain teachers."

Have the ears of the National Union of Teachers and other interested parties pricked up at this suggestion?

Mr Gibb praised the work of Norfolk County Council, supported by the National College, to develop local solutions to meet the demand for head teachers.

Afterwards Elizabeth Truss said: "I want all available tools, including successful programmes like Teach First, to be accessible to schools in Norfolk. It is vital that schools in South West Norfolk are able to recruit teachers in short supply subjects."